March 28, 2008

You'd think I would have blogged this story, but no, I passed it up, yet here's Glenn Reynolds, blogging and displaying a whole Gloria-Allred-with-the-pliers photograph:

I have just 2 things to say:

1. Airport security people don't force you to do anything — e.g., rip out your pus-stuck nipple tacks with pliers — they give you a choice. You can go forward onto your flight by accepting the search or turn around and leave.

2. When I see Gloria Allred, the direction I feel like turning is to "South Park." What's that episode where they mock Gloria Allred? Well, their website is so fabulous that you can not only easily search using your key word, but you can watch the whole episode. It's "Cripple Fight."

109 comments:

I can no more disown my nipple rings than I can disown the nipple-ring community. I can no more disown those bars than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of bare-chested nipple-ringed black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic nipple-ring stereotypes that made me cringe. These nipple rings are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.

Gloria Allred reminds me of a cross between Leona Hemsley and Cruella DeVille.

The cartoon portrayal was classic. I though the lines on her cace looked like plastic surgery stitches.

This is a case of dumb and dumber. You are going to fly. You know you may set off the metal detectors. You are not smart enough to remove your very personal jewelry before hand? You are going to rely and subject yourself to the whims of the TSA?

So, how is national security protected by "forcing" women to remove body piecings again?

Or should we not discuss that? Because obviously the woman is crazy if she doesn't submit to the whims of the state. What kind of anti-American nut has the audacity to question a government bureaucracy?

Thank you, Verso, for realizing this. The TSA is yet another example of the W Administration run amok. "Let's not pay any attention to people who have access to a little thing like passports" but "let's make a young woman remove her nipple rings."

People who are flying are doing so for a reason--they have to be in a certain place at a certain time. If they don't make their flight, they face missing out on commitments, possibly losing their job, shelling out a lot of money for an expensive last-minute flight that they may or may not make, depending on the whim of the TSA. There is a lot of pressure to make the flight and I don't the the commenter above should discount that.

Airport security people don't force you to do anything -- they give you a choice.

Sure, not flying is a valid choice -- if you're Amish. Nipple rings, navel rings, and even the dread Prince Albert have been around for years and years -- somehow airport security forces have been able to cope without the wearer having to rip them out. What do they do in Europe, where the detection thresholds have been set to gum wrapper levels since the Munich Olympics massacre? Or did the TSA simply want to see her boobies?

1. Airport security people don't force you to do anything — e.g., rip out your pus-stuck nipple tacks with pliers — they give you a choice. You can go forward onto your flight by accepting the search or turn around and leave.

Is this true? I've never tested it, mind, but I recall quite clearly that at Reagan National, there are signs indicating that you are not permitted to withdraw from the inspection process once it has begun.

Look, the TSA agents make a big point of explaining each step and asking you if it's okay. You don't have to do it.

If you go to the airport with metal on your person, you are creating a situation that you need to deal with one way or the other. Take the metal out before you go or deal with the search. Or walk away. It's not that complicated.

People who are flying are doing so for a reason--they have to be in a certain place at a certain time. If they don't make their flight, they face missing out on commitments, possibly losing their job, shelling out a lot of money for an expensive last-minute flight that they may or may not make, depending on the whim of the TSA.

Actually, the Administration opposed the creation of the TSA. From the NY Times, Oct. 12, 2001:

'This is a function of government,'' said one author of the legislation, Senator Ernest F. Hollings, the South Carolina Democrat who heads the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. ''No one is putting in measures to privatize the Capitol police or the Secret Service. We are going to give some protection to the traveling public.''

Mr. Hollings's co-author was Senator John McCain of Arizona, the committee's senior Republican, who said of the move to create a new federal work force: ''I do not advocate this move lightly. But the attack last month was an act of war, and we must respond accordingly.''

The Bush administration had earlier indicated that it could support the bill despite preferring legislation that would limit the government's new role at airports to oversight rather than hands-on screening.

Democrats wanted to create more unionized government employees; McCain reached out to them, the way he does, and the bill was passed over White House opposition.

People who are flying are doing so for a reason--they have to be in a certain place at a certain time. If they don't make their flight, they face missing out on commitments, possibly losing their job, shelling out a lot of money for an expensive last-minute flight that they may or may not make, depending on the whim of the TSA.

Hidden items such as body piercings may result in your being directed to additional screening for a pat-down inspection. If selected for additional screening, you may ask to remove your body piercing in private as an alternative to the pat-down search.

Then again if we simply concentrate on that demographic which tends to commit 99.98% of terrorist activity as of late, no one will be subjected to having to remove piercings or have thier sex toys examined prior to boarding.

Ann Althouse said... If you go to the airport with metal on your person, you are creating a situation that you need to deal with one way or the other. Take the metal out before you go or deal with the search. Or walk away.

Suppose the TSA retard decides you should remove the fillings from your teeth. Would you just smile and take the train instead?

My favorite scene from a movies is in Airplane when a pair of tits appear on the screen and are jiggling and then depart. That scene is one of the most important statements a movie has ever made and it made a huge impact on me.

Look, the TSA agents make a big point of explaining each step and asking you if it's okay. You don't have to do it.

If you go to the airport with metal on your person, you are creating a situation that you need to deal with one way or the other.

I'm going to have to play the "I can't believe Ann is a constitutional law prof" card here. What if the TSA decides to add body cavity searches? What if you have to show up three hours before your flight for the mandatory enema and colonoscopy? At what point are the passengers' Fourth Amendment rights being violated for the privilege of air travel? The minimum standard is "reasonableness" -- what harm do nipple rings represent that must be prevented by ripping them out?

Ann Althouse said..."If you go to the airport with metal on your person, you are creating a situation that you need to deal with one way or the other. Take the metal out before you go or deal with the search. Or walk away. It's not that complicated."

Couldn't agree more. This was entirely foreseeable - wear metal to the airport, have problems. Is it an overreaction by TSA? Probably, but for the life of me I don't see the beef here.

“Then again if we simply concentrate on that demographic which tends to commit 99.98% of terrorist activity as of late, no one will be subjected to having to remove piercings or have thier sex toys examined prior to boarding”

They tried to concerntrate on that demographic but they couldn’t find enough people who would agree to give a camel a cavity search.

A bunch of us accountants went to Vegas once to blow off steam after April 15th and we go to the Palomino club. Now one of the strippers was lactating and sort of dripping a little as she worked the pole. One of the guys was real conservative and kind of shy. So we paid the lovely young single mom to give him a lap dance and at the climax (so to speak) to start squirting milk all over this guy. His face, his shirt and best of all his horn rimmed glasses.

Suppose the TSA retard decides you should remove the fillings from your teeth. Would you just smile and take the train instead?

If that's an option, and it's not going to take a ridiculous amount of time (e.g. going DC to Boston by train), I'd recommend the train anyway. They've got power outlets, a little cafe car, more legroom, and better scenery.

Other than Penn Station in NY, which has been stripped down to a rathole, the train stations are also generally much pleasanter places than the airports. For example, between Union Station in DC and the three execrable airports serving the region, there is simply no contest. Union station, whatever you may think of its imperial mien, at least looks like a building built for human beings.

On the downside, Amtrak is run by incompetent ninnies who have never quite figured out how to run the trains on a working schedule. Earlier this week, the entire rail network from DC to Boston was shut down for hours because there was apparently "low voltage" somewhere in New York,and they didn't have any working backup systems. But these kinds of third-world screwups are not unknown to our airline companies too -- United and US Airways are particularly incompetent -- so it's a bit of a wash.

While I certainly don’t love the TSA (whose procedures seem designed to inconvenience law-abiding citizens while deliberately overlooking potential terrorists in the name of political correctness), anyone at this point who thinks they can just walk onto an airplane with metal attached to their person is just an idiot.

I simply refuse to fly for any trip less than a thousand miles, after they made my retarded adult son go through their stupid line again after he went back two feet over their “red line” in the airport in Dayton (he made no surreptitious moves and was in view of a security guard the entire time). It is a nuisance and very destructive to air travel but you know what you are getting into long before you arrive at the airport, so remove your "tit jewelry" ahead of time, stupid.

"Airport security people don't force you to do anything — e.g., rip out your pus-stuck nipple tacks with pliers — they give you a choice. You can go forward onto your flight by accepting the search or turn around and leave."

Oh, baloney. That ducks the main absurdity. Just because you have an axe to grind with this Allred person doesn't mean the TSA accomplished a damn thing here with their bureaucratic blindness.

What is the logic behind denying people the right to travel by airplane because they have nipple rings?

Please, someone elaborate on the threat posed by nipple rings. It's not my bag, (baby,) but I don't think we need a federal rule prohibiting the pierced from flying.

What is the logic behind denying people the right to travel by airplane because they have nipple rings?

Please, someone elaborate on the threat posed by nipple rings. It's not my bag, (baby,) but I don't think we need a federal rule prohibiting the pierced from flying.

Ah, the old rules should not apply to certain people because they do not like them. The rule may be there for a reason or it may be totally stupid, but it is the rule, and Congress, not Bush, gave TSA the authority to make the rules. If you do not like the rules either fight to get them changed or do not fly.

Of course, you people do not beleive in rules anyway unless they deny your enemies their rights.

Middle Class Guy sez: "...it is the rule, and Congress, not Bush, gave TSA the authority to make the rules. "

You do understand that the executive branch, a.k.a. "The Bush Administration" runs the TSA and other federal agencies? Bush's Admin made the rules that "require" TSA agents to flip out over nipple rings. (Note: Cheney is the 4th branch). These are Bush's rules.

I think this is more about a guard who doesn't like body piercings (with him there) abusing their authority to cause someone else to bow to their lifestyle choices (they lost me).

It's a creeping police state mentality to say that it's appropriate for the federal government to dictate such personal tastes.

MCG: Ann, you are preaching common sense here. Too many people have none or fail to use it. They would rather "fight the man".

No, not quite.

I think those things are not easy to take off. The guard was being a jerk, demanding such things be removed when a patdown would have sufficed. That's all there is to it. No-one was in harm's way because of the nipple rings.

The authoritarian (conservative) set demands citizens submit to authority, no matter how absurd or nonsensical the demand. It's all about obedience to authority for you guys. "Freedom" my ass.

"I may not agree with your decision to wear nipple rings, but I'll fight.." Oh nevermind.

Ann Althouse said... Take the metal out before you go or deal with the search. Or walk away. It's not that complicated.

Ann, you are preaching common sense here. Too many people have none or fail to use it. They would rather "fight the man".

Ann's advice is "common sense" only because we're used to the current sense of indignities. If the TSA agent made us perform "Simon Says," people like mcs would think that those who forgot to say "Mother May I" lacked common sense. Common sense is not making women show you their nipple rings. We're actually the frog in the pot, but so far the water's only at 120F.

So we are going to start suing for every indignant or inhuman thing the government "makes" us do. hmmm...

How about the 25 or so times I've had to piss in a cup in because of the Drug Free Workplace Act?I used to think it was just the price I paid for the jobs I've had but you know, its really not fair to lump me in wth dope smokers and meth heads.

Body piercings other than the belly button are second only to tattoos in the turn-off factor for me. Still, this is stupid. As stupid as most of the other regulations that actually decrease air travel safety by distracting personnel from concentrating on the likely in favor of the minutia.

"I think those things are not easy to take off. The guard was being a jerk, demanding such things be removed when a patdown would have sufficed. That's all there is to it. No-one was in harm's way because of the nipple rings."

Suppose the metal ('nipple rings') are actually just the exposed metal of an underlying explosive device? It would take quite an aggressive patdown to detect the underlying bomb. Indeed, it might take prolonged, deep-tissue massage to make sure that the only metal there was the exposed nipple ring.

I imagine it as more of a taste test, you know like how on Starsky and Hutch or Baretta when he could take one taste of a powder and identify what kind of drug it was. I just think it would take a little more intensive tasting. So to speak.

Freder, you always complain people here dump on you because you're a liberal. No its more because of you stating things like this:

you just can't remove and replace body-piercings. They are pretty much in for the duration.

You're dumped on because you simply make ignorant, ill-informed and completely unfounded statements.

You have this tendency to throw out a counter-argument to anything a conservative on this board may say. You know, that's perfectly fine but it would help your credibility just a tad if you at least did a Google first.

I am watching Alldred on TV. She claims that the policy is going to be changed regarding tit rings. Visual inspection versus removal. She is also slathering, blathering, and sloobering all over her client's "courage" to bring this to the attention of the public.

Whoever decided to make it a policy that body piercings have to be removed before people can board a plane needs to be sacked. And if it isn't a policy, whichever security drone decided to invent one needs to be sacked. And then sacked from him next job, too, just to be safe. :)

This is supposed to be about making airline travel safer. What was this lady going to do -- bludgeon the pilot to death with her tits?

Way before 9/11 (and before normal people considered piercing anything beyond their ear lobes), I used to visit a friend of mine in prison. They had lots of rules, one of which was no underwire bras. Ear rings were also forbidden. Strangely, watches, glasses, and belts were allowed. I didn't want to point out the absurdity of this lest they revise the rules.

The sensitivity on their metal detector was set real high, high enough that underwire bras and metal studs would set the thing off. So would change, belt buckles, keys, watches, and glasses, most of which would make it through airport metal detectors at the time.

More than once I watched underwire-bra'd women try and fail to bitch their way past the guards. In the end they had two choices - loose the bra and the earrings, or go home. There was a bathroom in which they could remove them, and they were given a paper bag in which to transport them to the lockers which were provided.

Oh, we had to remove our shoes every time as well, which got hand inspected and hand-wanded. When they changed the security procedures at airports post 9/11 it was quite familiar to me.

The security procedures in place now have by and large been in place in other higher security situations for dozens of years, and is not some new inconvenience dreamt up by the eeeevil BusHitler as a method of oppressing progressive body piercers.

AlphaLiberal: What is the logic behind denying people the right to travel by airplane because they have nipple rings?

I was unaware that travel by airplane was a right.

Interstate travel is a fundamental right; a privilege or immunity of national citizenship, implicit in the concept of ordered liberty. However, rules that implicate the safety of interstate travel receive only rational basis review.

Something doesn't have to be a right before a government ban on it may be considered stupid and wrong. Whenever the government says "you cannot do that", the burden should always be on the government to explain why not.

The security procedures in place now have by and large been in place in other higher security situations for dozens of years

Lots of procedures have been in place for years without there being any sensible reason for them.

My guess would be that the reason for this particular policy is simple: the average airport security guard isn't very intelligent. It isn't a job that attracts people of even average intelligence and competence -- you get to stand around all day, not getting paid much, dealing with people who are almost always irritable. It is a job that only appeals to (a) people who get off on having a little power over others and (b) people who aren't fit for better work.

A concept like "keep making the person take stuff off until they can walk through the detector without beeping" is something even the mongoloids at the security checkpoint can remember without needing constant reminders. Actually making a judgment call requires a level of critical thinking skills that you don't usually find until you've moved up to at least the "Starbucks barrista" level of job skill.

Given the parameters of the search authority Congress gave TSA, the body piercing problem with passing through metal detectors appears to be being handled rationally with consideration for the passengers rights in screening.

Others encounter similar problems with metal, like a consultant I know that carried shrapnel from a friendly fire incident in Vietnam. But you can't just take Gloria, or Fred, or Ayman bin-Abdullah's word that they just set off detectors on hidden body piercings.

Or be like my father in law who was in a delegation going to Congress and setting off radiation detectors right and left on Capital Hill and delayed almost an hour while Cap Hill VERIFIED he had a nuclear medicine test from the doctor whose note he carried.

While I support people having to comply with regulations and not just pick and chose them based on some sense of "personal rights they hold above the law" - and while I detest Gloria Allred's media whore game - that doesn't mean much of what TSA does is absolutely stupid and all for show.

My preference would be that we have lighter security against human bombs and if the Islamoids start blasting planes again, ban Muslims or screen them completely and leave the probale non-threat passengers mostly alone.

Once planes could not be used as guided missiles by securing the cockpit, that meant the worst threat is someone could blow a plane up, and there are a multiplicity of methods for doing so that cannot be made 100% guarded against by security without destroying the aviation industry and the ability to fly by making things so expensive, onerous, objectionable to personal privacy and time-consuming.

Face it once the 1st Islamoid, and they are all not stupid, figures out you can body-pack 10 pounds of C-4 into a Jihadi and blows a plane up that way - we either all accept body cavity searches or have a moment of sanity and abandon all the chickenshit like maximum toothpaste allowed and sneaker scans and accept we will have to have acceptable risk and other ways to punish the Islamoids and those nations that back them.

A pack of Yemenis blows a plane up? Fine, blow every plane in Yemen up for tolerating terror, and no plane flies in or out of Yemen for 5 years as a penalty, and all Yemeni citizens are banned from flying into our country or other countries that seek to force an end to the love affair radical Muslims have with aviation as a weapon....And if that works, a lot of TSA people will be out of jobs and all passangers will not be presumed to be deadly monsters needing their toenail clippers and lighters confiscated.

A relative of mine has metal pins in her legs. She always sets off the airport metal detectors -- but once she explains the problem and they use a hand-held detector to confirm that the metal is inside her legs, they let her board. There is no safety reason to let her board a plane, but refuse to let a person with hard-to-remove piercings board the plane.

"Hidden items such as body piercings may result in your being directed to additional screening for a pat-down inspection. If selected for additional screening, you may ask to remove your body piercing in private as an alternative to the pat-down search."

It seems to me that present rules are that a pat-down (or like the lady says she offered, to show them to a female security person) is *already* allowed. Nothing says, "Remove all hidden body piercings" and considering how explicit the instructions are when one flies, you'd think it would say that if it were required.

Now, making such a big media television production with the manikin and bra and stuff is just, oh dear, was that the least bit necessary?

I don't really see how this is a case where we have to pick sides. (Though the anti-Bush rant was sort of fun.)